Liverpool

Vignettes show life aboard an oceangoing cargo vessel: games in the rec room, a larder stocked with snacks, an instrument room and an engine room. The focus centers on Farrel, who is rousted from sleep and moves through a sparse cabin, doing maintenance painting before heading to the deck. He stands at the railing in a strong wind, watching the rushing water as the sea swirls around the ship.

With the ship seven hours from Ushuaia and weather turning bad, Farrel tells the captain he needs ashore to check on his mother. The captain approves the leave but imposes a return deadline to the vessel. This moment marks a personal turning point as his longing overrides routine discipline.

Farrel showers, packs his gear, and pockets a bottle of vodka he drinks before departure. He signs out and descends the metal staircase into whipping wind, underdressed for ice and wet conditions. In an alley he swaps his large bag for a smaller one, stashing the extras to be collected later.

On land Farrel spends time in a restaurant for a quiet meal and later drinks alone at a nude dance bar. The solitary rituals underscore his isolation and longing for home. The sequence foreshadows the hardship of his journey to reach his mother.

Morning finds Farrel waking by the water in a derelict ferry with a ruined interior. He starts the day with a cigarette and a swallow of vodka, surveying the bleak surroundings. The setting signals a rough, improvised trek ahead.

Farrel hitches a ride from a truck depot to Tolhuin, climbing into the back of a flatbed with two other passengers while a woman waits in the cab. The barren forest and snowy mountains roll by as they travel. He takes a swig from the vodka bottle, bracing himself for the road ahead.

In a rugged canteen Farrel encounters Nazarena, who is ill, and a shy young woman named Analia who enters with a serving dish. Trujillo escorts Analia home, and Farrel follows, watching the fragile household dynamics unfold. The scene plants the seeds of Farrel’s connections with the mother and the child.

That night Farrel wakes in an abandoned shed with an empty bottle, and Nazarena remains bedridden. He is carried to Trujillo's cottage to warm up, where he learns that shortly after he left, Analia was born. The moment confirms the price of his long absence and the fragile ties that bind the family.

Back in the canteen, Farrel buys bread and returns to the house where Analia sits drawing by a window. Farrel offers her the bread, but she ignores it and instead asks for money, revealing a child’s straightforward hunger and dependence. The moment sharpens the distance between Farrel and Analia.

Farrel finds Nazarena bedridden and sits beside her, stating his name. She does not recognize him, underscoring the ache of years apart and the cost of his absence. The scene intensifies the emotional stakes of his visit.

Before leaving, Farrel presses money into Analia's hand and takes a photograph from a shelf. He gives her a keepsake—a gaudy metal Liverpool port keychain—and sets off back toward the road, not looking back as the world goes on around him. A window scene in Trujillo’s cottage offers a quiet counterpoint to the departure.

In the final beat, Analia is seen with the keychain—the Liverpool keepsake Farrel gave her—while a private message is revealed on a fencepost earlier in the story. The keychain spins in her hand as the screen cuts to black, leaving Farrel's fate and the family’s future unresolved. The image ties together absence, memory, and a fragile gift from a father who could not stay.